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29 April 2013

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Copy Cat Manis. For today's theme, we were to copy another blogger's mani and show both of them side by side.

I really really really wanted to use Gosh Holographic Hero which I got in a swap not too long ago. So I searched Google for some nail art using it. I thought about just picking a mani from my Pinterest board, but there's too many! This narrowed it down for me. I ended up recreating this mani from ChitChatNails. And here they are!!!

I'm suffering from breakage issues, so my nails aren't as pretty as hers. This is also my first time doing this form of dotted nail art. Not too bad if I don't say so myself.

As I mentioned earlier, the base coat is Gosh Holographic Hero. I used 2-3 coats for this mani. I didn't use a base coat. Then I put on 1 thin coat of Holographic Hero to lay a foundation. I added 1-2 thick coats on top making sure to sort of float the polish on top of the thin layer to prevent dragging. It worked pretty well that way!

I got some beautiful shots of Holographic Hero in the sun so enjoy the picture spam below!

24 April 2013

The title is my attempt at humor and a clue to what today's mani features :)

In case you can't guess, today's mani features moustaches, but it also features Illamasqua Grab.

Illamasqua Grab is a almost neon magenta-pink color. And it's beautiful. I normally don't like pink, but I really like this one. The formula is great too. I used 2 coats on this, but you could possibly get away with one.

On my index finger, I used another sample Jamberry nail shield courtesy of Kelly.

The mustaches are vinyl nail stickers that I got in a swap, but they are similar ones available on Etsy through various sellers. I love these because they sizes get gradually smaller so they look very nicely proportional on all my fingers.

I am so in love with my mani. Like for real. It took 10 minutes to do which is great since my little man has been taking short naps lately (his poor teeth are bothering him).

22 April 2013

I recently did a swap with a friend from the UK and received two lovely polishes. The one I'm going to show you today is Barry M Pomegranate from the Gelly Collection.

Pomegranate is lovely! It's thick so I was able to do just one coat (just one!) for this mani! Even though it's thick, the formula is wonderful and it's so easy to apply. I'm no sure why the collection is called Gelly because Pomegranate is definitely a cream.

So silly me decided to look up why it's called Gelly. The Gelly collection is formulated to give the appearance of wearing gel polish with its high shine formula. And they hit the nail on the head. These pictures show it with top coat, but it's just as shiny without. The dry nice was nice on this too though I still used a fast dry top coat (some polishes take forever to dry even with a fast dry top coat).

On my ring finger as an accent is a Jamberry Nail Shield. This one is called Turquoise and White Horizontal Stripe (not very original, I know). I received the shield as part of a free sample from my friend Kelly who is a Jamberry Nails Consultant. Jamberry recently reformulated their shields, and I wanted to try them out!

The directions say to use a hair dryer, but I just peeled off the shield using tweezers and held it in front of the space heater that's on our bathroom counter. So easy. It took me less than a minute to apply this. I like these shields better than Sally Hansen ones because it's easy to remove the wrinkles. Just keep sticking your hand in front of your heat source and smoothing out as needed. Jamberry says this process will also help to create a tight shield and increase wear time.

19 April 2013

I decided to add some nail art to Illamasqua Load, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. I thought about doing some rainy day nails, but I did some last year. The art on last year's design could be improved, but I still wanted to do something more original. I decided to head over to my Inspiration board on Pinterest. There, I save things that I can use as inspiration for manis. A lot of the pins are patterns, but I also have some pictures.

I saw this picture and knew it would be perfect! It would great with Load as a background, plus it had the rainy day idea.

I really love the way this turned out! I do wish the shape of the birds was a teeny bit better, but I am my own worst critic!

I think I love the cloud on here the best. I love that little heart on it <3

Colors used were Illamasqua Load for the base, Nina Ultra Pro Ink-ling for the body of the birdies, Zoya Dove for the other grey details, Wet n Wild French White Creme, and OPI Chop-Sticking to My Story for the perfect orange.

17 April 2013

This is another polish that I got as part of my Illamasqua group order. Load has been a major lemming of mine for a while so I'm soooo glad that I got it finally! I ordered a second one as a backup too :)

Load is a pastel creamy yellow-ish white. I love the sort of neutral color it is without being a plain ole white.

I needed 3 coats for this mani, and the dry time was a bit slow which is pretty expected for a pastel/white color. I used Seche Vite on top, and it still took a while to dry for me.

I still love the color of Load, and the Illamasqua formula (very little cleanup needed here!)

15 April 2013

I did a group order forever ago it seems when Illamasqua was doing a sale on their website so we could get free US shipping. It took a long time, but my polishes finally made it to me a week or two ago.

I got Illamasqua at part of my order and KNEW I had to use it for today's purple mani.

Look at that glow! Illamasqua describes Baptiste as "a deep royal purple" with a "shimmer finish." I would say it's so much more than that. It has this beautiful inner glow to it that really makes it stand out. I used two coats for what you see here. I used thin coats so you could probably get away with one thick coat.

On my accent fingers, I used Rimmel Black Satin and one coat of Milani Lavender. Lavender is a super dense glitter with lavender hexes and purple micro glitter. It applies great and really stands out over black.

12 April 2013

I have a super simple yet pretty mani for you today. I recently got Butter London All Hail the Queen from a little sale a friend had. It wasn't on my wishlist, but I love holos so I'm not sure why it wasn't!

All Hail the Queen is a super pretty nude (yes, nude!) holo. The holo here is not in-your-face like the Color Clubs are so it makes it perfect to wear to formal/business-related occasions.

It was on with 2 easy coats and dry time was good. I used a base coat which didn't make application difficult and a top coat which didn't dull the holo at all.

I decided to add a small gold metal star stud as an easy accent without covering up All Hail the Queen. I put a drop of nail glue down, placed my stud on top, and used a dotting tool to push it down until the glue was mostly set.

It is lifted up a bit as you can see in the pictures below, but honestly not enough to bother me. I know it might bother some others though.

11 April 2013

I just mentioned a few days ago that you could follow me via Bloglovin in addition to Google Friend Connect that most of you already follow me through.
I've also made a Facebook page so you can follow me there.

10 April 2013

Zoya Vespa is the last of the Pixie Polishes that I bought. The formula was just like the other Pixies. I used three coats for this mani since Vespa is a bit more sheer. Depending on how thick you put on your polish, you will need 2-4 coats of Vespa.

This first picture isn't quite as color accurate as the other two, but shows off the sparkle well.

What is your favorite Pixie Polish? (It doesn't have to be one I have!)

08 April 2013

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Fishtail/Braided. (I'll show you the last Pixie Dust later this week as I wanted to show you the Monday Mani on time).

I started with a base of Zoya Storm. I use thinner coats so I needed two here. What you see is the mani without clean-up. That's right! No cleanup! No wonder the Zoya brush was voted the best :)

Many bloggers have reviewed Storm before so I'll be brief. It's a wonderful base scattered holo polish. Simple, chic, and beautiful.

I've seen several different tutorials for the fishtail/braided mani so I didn't need one for this. I chose to do just my ring finger as an accent so Storm could still stand out on the other nails.

I used Barry M Silver Foil (which I normally only use for stamping, but I wanted a super opaque silver to go over Storm) and Zoya Isla. I was able to do just one swipe of Silver Foil since it's nicely opaque. For Isla, I used 2 swipes for the first braid but only did 1 for the second. You can tell that it's not quite dark enough there, but it still looks really nice.

This was my first time doing a fishtail/braided mani, and it was SO easy! I can't believe I haven't done one before. I'll definitely be doing more in the future.

Have you done a fishtail/braided mani before? What color combinations would you like to see me do?

06 April 2013

Zoya Godiva is another Pixie Polish that I bought. Like London, it goes on beautifully! I needed 3 coats for this mani so dry time was a little longer. It reminds me a great deal of sand. I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Godiva is such a beautiful nude that I think it could be worn by those will skin colors and still look great! It could also be worn when you need professional nails, but it's still has a bit of an edge!

The macro is blurry, but shows off the awesome glitter very well.

I plan to do some nail art using the Pixie. In what nail art applications would you like to see Godiva used?

This week has been a bit crazy since I'm catching up from being gone all weekend. Plus we're going out of town again on Saturday. This time it's just a day trip, but traveling with a little one is soooo much harder than when it was just the two of us! I haven't been able to do my nails since my Easter mani. Bad nail blogger!

Luckily for all of you, I ordered 3 of the Pixie Dust polishes from Zoya during their recent Valentine's Day promotion and never got around to posting them! I have London on for today's mani.

Can I just tell you how much I love this polish? Application was 2 coats and dry time was really nice. Despite the texture, the polish didn't catch on anything. I loved rubbing my fingers over the polish the whole time I wore it.

This last picture is blurry, but I still wanted to show you since it shows off the glitter very well.

What to you think of the Pixie Polishes (or other textured polishes)?

(This is a new thing I'm going to do and ask a question at the end of each blog post.)

01 April 2013

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Easter. I decided to go super cutesy for today's mani, and I love how it turned out. It was super fast to do too!

On my ring finger I used a base of 2 coats of Sinful Colors Candy Coated. The formula is really nice on this, and the dry time is decent considering it's a pastel.

On my index finger, I used a base of 3 coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn. Since it's a yellow and a pastel, dry time was pretty slow though the formula was decent.

I used 2 coats of Candeo Colors Jellybean on my other fingers. I knew I had to use Jellybean for this mani, because well the name is jellybean! Plus the yellow base matched Unicorn and the purple glitter matched Candy Coated.

I painted on the bunny and the chick shell using Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner and just the brush from the bottle. The black details on both are done with Wet n Wild Black Creme and a nail art brush.

The chick's beak is Zoya Arizona, and I just used the brush that came with Arizona. The pink details on the bunny are Ulta Encore Pink, and I again just used the bottle brush to add in those.

I topped everything off with top coat after I let it dry for a while (to prevent dragging of the colors), and tada!